The present invention relates to a cigarette hopper.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,162-A1 and FR-2,282,370-A1 disclose known cigarette hoppers, each of which comprises a top chamber housing an orderly mass of equioriented cigarettes and terminating at the bottom with a number of outlets, each of which comprises a group of side by side channels defined by a number of substantially vertical walls and having respective inlets communicating with the top chamber. At each outlet, the hopper has an agitating device comprising a number of substantially cylindrical agitating members parallel to the cigarettes in the hopper, and which, in use, oscillate about respective axes. More specifically, the agitating members are mounted in twos close to and on either side of the inlets of respective channels.
In particular, the agitating cylindrical members disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,162-A1 are rotary coupled to a fixed frame and are all synchronously oscillated about respective axes by an actuating device; whereas the agitating members disclosed in FR-2,282,370-A1 are also rotary coupled to a fixed frame, but form two groups, in which the agitating cylindrical members of each group are all synchronously oscillated about respective axes by a respective actuating device, and the agitating cylindrical members of each group are oscillated in opposition of phase in relation to the agitating cylindrical members of the other group.
FR-2,327,923-A1 discloses a known cigarette hopper, which comprises a top chamber housing an orderly mass of equioriented cigarettes and a number of bottom outlets each having a respective group of side by side channels defined by a number of substantially vertical walls and having respective inlets communicating with, the top chamber. At each outlet, the hopper has an agitating device comprising a number of agitating members which are parallel to the cigarettes in the hopper and move, in use, back and forth along a straight path. In particular, the agitating members are integral with a common bar, which is moved moves back and forth along a straight path by an actuating device.
Hoppers of the above type have only been found to perform satisfactorily at relatively low speeds, and fail to ensure constant, continuous supply of cigarettes to the channels at the operating speeds of modern packaging machines capable of producing around 15 packets a second.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cigarette hopper designed to eliminate the forementioned drawbacks, and which is also straightforward and cheap to produce.
According to the present invention, there is provided a hopper for cigarettes as recited in claim 1.